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First gay Episcopal bishop set to retire

Lynne Tuohy

New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson says he chafed for several years at being branded the first openly gay bishop of the Anglican Church until he realised he was wasting a pulpit from which he could advocate for equality.

"I'd been given this really remarkable opportunity and it would be selfish of me not to be the best steward of that opportunity," he recently told The Associated Press in an interview as he prepares to retire in January.

"We went from my consecration, which set off this international controversy, to nine years later seeing gay, lesbian and transgender congregants welcome at all levels of the church, including bishop."

Robinson's election in 2003 as the first openly gay bishop in the Anglican Church created an international uproar and led conservative Episcopalians to break away from the main church in the United States.

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Robinson, 65, will hand the pastoral staff to his successor, A Robert Hirschfeld, in a ceremony at St Paul's Episcopal Church in Concord on January 5.

As he prepared to retire after nearly a decade as bishop, Robinson reflected on the ups and downs of his tenure.

He was publicly shunned by church elders, targeted with death threats and says he struggled to strike a balance between being the "good bishop" and the "gay bishop". In the end, he says, they became one and the same.

He is a self-described "off-the-end-of-the-scale extrovert" who bounds across stages and television studios, whether promoting causes or his new book, God Believes in Love: Straight Talk About Gay Marriage.

Robinson said it pained him deeply to be excluded in 2008 from a gathering of Anglican bishops and clergy that occurs every 10 years in England, known as the Lambeth Conference. He said it was the first time since 1867 that a bishop had not been invited.

He travelled to England despite the snub to make his presence known and minister to anyone who wanted his counsel.

"It was probably the hardest thing I've done - to go and bear up under that quite intentional exclusion," Robinson said. "It took me a long time to get over it."

A month before the conference, he entered into a civil union with his long-time partner Mark Andrew. Robinson chuckles that columnists in religious publications speculated he did it to thumb his nose at the conference.

Robinson said it was a coincidence, one he and Andrew didn't realise until after the date was set, and said the timing of the ceremony was driven by far more sombre reasons.

"The point was to put in place the protections a civil union would provide if someone made good on these death threats ... before I put myself in harm's way," Robinson said. "I wanted Mark to be as protected as he could be."

Their civil union automatically converted to a marriage when New Hampshire legalised gay marriage in 2010.

Months after the Lambeth Conference, Robinson delivered the invocation at the Lincoln Memorial that kicked off festivities leading up to the inauguration of President Barack Obama.

"That was an enormous honour," Robinson said.

Robinson will be a part-time senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank founded by John Podesta, former chief of staff for president Bill Clinton. Robinson intends to spend two weeks a month in Washington and focus on immigration and health care reform, poverty and gay and lesbian issues.